Shark Tank Night Results

by Natalee Champlin

The four sharks (from Left to Right): Amy Anderson founder of Mediconnect Global, Brad Oldroyd Founder and CEO of Teamone Management Group, Paul Woodland Former CFO of Dryers Grand Ice Cream Inc., and Steve Peterson, general partner of Millrock Capital.

Wednesday night’s shark tank event was amazing. There was so much energy. The ECC auditorium was full and we had a great time with the Sharks. The results were:

$5,000 given to our top entrepreneurs

Seth Christensen founder of Christensen Genetics

• $2,000 to MBA, Danny Noall for Infuze, an inline hydration flavoring system for camelbak packs

• $1500 to Ag major, Seth Christensen for Christensen Genetics, a company that helps beef cattle producers reduce expenses and increase revenue by improving quality of cattle through artificial insemination and bull leasing

• $1000 to Engineering major, Cody Pickering for Align Boards, an aluminum skate deck design and manufacturing company

• $500 to Spencer Finch for Rental on Me, an online marketplace where users can make money by sharing their items, goods, and even services.

Spencer Finch pitching his start-up, Rental On Me, a website that allows users to connect and rent their personal belongings.

An additional $1,000 was given to the crowd favorite, based on a live text-to-vote competition. Danny Noall won. 

In addition, a few of the sharks are interested in personally investing in 2-3 of these student companies and will be meeting with them to discuss an investment deal.

But that’s not it… Amy Anderson, contributor to Forbes magazine will be writing an article about ALL four of our student entrepreneurs. This is huge! It was a tremendous night and couldn't have gone any better. 

Students in the Entrepreneur Leadership Series class gathered in the Eccles Conference Center on Wednesday April 1^st to watch four fellow classmates pitch their business ideas to angel investors in Utah State’s very own Shark Tank.

Jeff Clark the Risk-taker, Challenger, Motivator

By Klydi Heywood

As I listened intently to a remarkable man who grew his companies into the billions, I inferred three facts: this man believes in himself, his wife and the people around him.

One of the themes Jeff Clark centered around at the Entrepreneurial Lecture Series on Wednesday night was the principle that we all come to a “changing of the guards” moment in our lives that can alter everything.

Eventually, “you’re able look back and start to realize everything you have done to this point is preparing you for that next period,” Mr. Clark said.

Another valuable theme Mr. Clark taught was the importance of treating your employees well.

“If your greatest asset rides an elevator, invest in it heavily,” Mr. Clark said. He wanted to build a positive culture within his company where he could grow his business purely by having his satisfied clients refer their partners and competitors to his firm.

“We won because as we looked around, we had really happy employees,” Mr. Clark said. “Competitors were trying to figure out how we could get so much done, by so few people.”

He invested in his employees concerns and interests and “made them feel like business owners.”

The final lesson Mr. Clark taught was that of confidence. He attributed much of his young confidence to working hard and doing what he knew was right, always.

“One thing I learned while I was not getting what I wanted was that I was still getting experience and I figured out a way to do it better,” he said. “I think that entrepreneurs are actually, more often than not, born out of some degree or some job where they go and have great focus on what they are trying to do and accomplish for their employer, but at the same time have this panoramic vision where they look around and say, ‘Wait a minute. If we do this, that or the other, we could do it better.’”

Jeff Clark presenting in the 2014 ELS

 For more information on upcoming Entrepreneurial Lecture Series speakers visit http://huntsman.usu.edu/ecenter/files/uploads/Spring2014/speakerFlyer.pdf.

By Klydi Heywood

Entrepreneurial Experiences From Alan Hall

Klydi Heywood

After having a 1 - 4 track record with successful businesses, Alan Hall asked his wife if he could second mortgage the house to start Marketstar.

“Bless her heart, she let me do it,” Mr. Hall said, “And I worked my tail off to make this business successful because I had learned some of the things I’m going to tell you tonight.”

At the Entrepreneurship Speaker Series Lecture Wednesday Feb. 6, Mr. Hall gave seven points that have helped him in his entrepreneurial adventures. Three in particular stood out to me.

Know your customer

“You go sell your idea first, you come back and design it, you build it and then you deliver it,” he said. He explained that many entrepreneurs start with the design and end with selling. When a person pitches their business idea and they don’t know specifically who their customer is, it’s all down-hill because they don’t know where to market, they don’t know how to get it out and “they blow through lots of money trying to find the customer,” Mr. Hall added.

He explained to never base your business on the product in the first place, other than the idea.

Take care of your customers

“Once people get the sale, they do a lousy job of taking care of that customer,” Mr. Hall said. He named the following list the “Value Chain of What Customers Want When They Buy a Product”:

• Good product
• Good price
• Delivered on time
• Make sure it works
• Support
• A good buying experience

“If you’re going to start a business, shouldn’t you take care of your customers?” Mr. Hall asked. He stated that taking care of the customers is where a lot of entrepreneurs fail.

Hire the right employees

I especially liked this point because of the applicability it has to me at this time in college. If this is the kind of person Mr. Hall wants to hire, then this is the professional I want to become.

He told us his seven C’s of hiring:

Competent - Although this is important, Mr. Hall said he made some big mistakes in his career by only looking at this aspect.

Capable - They need to be capable of growth. “They can actually take the assignment they have and enhance it,” Mr. Hall said. “They can do it better and more efficiently.”

Compatible - Mr. Hall stated that he wasted a lot of time on interpersonal relationships when he didn’t get along with someone.

Committed - You need to hire someone who will come in, work through thick and thin, won’t bail and will make sure they are always getting their job done, Mr. Hall said.

Character - “I want people who are honest, who have integrity, work hard, keep commitments, do things that are right, and if they don’t, I get rid of them,” Mr. Hall said, adding that to be honorable is non-negotiable.

Culture - Mr. Hall’s specific culture has developed overtime. His culture is “love of God, love of self, love of family, love of work, love of community.”  He emphasized the importance of always supporting and upholding this culture. If his employees like the culture and can depend on it, then they will work hard in return.

Compensation - Mr. Hall advised that we always want to take care of our employees. We should always be looking at ways to reward, increase pay and increase growing opportunities for those who deserve it.

Mr. Hall’s lecture opened my mind to a lot of mistakes that can be avoided on the entrepreneurial journey. I hope we can all take a few notes and become the next generation of successful business professionals.

For the complete lecture, click here

Lessons From a Piano-Pounding Entrepreneur

Klydi Heywood

With fingers flying across the piano keys and breath-taking videography in the background, Jon Schmidt’s presentation and lecture on Wednesday Jan. 30 was a feast for the senses. Students filled the auditorium in the Ellen Eccles Conference Center 30 minutes before the show started. And when I stood up to take pictures 10 minutes into the presentation, I had to climb over students who were stuffed into the isles.

He began with his story. Schmidt started performing at benefit events and selling cassette tapes whenever he could. Although he was amazed by the fact that people actually wanted to buy his tapes, he said he acted the part. 

“Fake it ‘til you make it,” Schmidt said. “It really works.” As students laughed at this remark, he continued by stating that people’s perception is reality.

“Your image is what people perceive, and that’s what they believe,” he said. With his humility shining through, Schmidt attributed this factor to his early success.

Schmidt’s second entrepreneurial advice for success was to think of, create or do something that has never been done before. When Schmidt met cellist Steven Sharp Nelson, he wanted to create something different. With their first YouTube sensation “Love Story Meets Viva la Vida,” the innovation for creative, classical yet modern music was born.

Schmidt then played the song for the audience, and the goose bumps on my arms started to rise. In addition to being a very talented pianist, Schmidt was an entertainer. He would bob his head to the beat, sway his shoulders to the melody and even spin around and play upside down.

When asked what got him through the tough times of being an entrepreneurial musician, Schmidt gave credit to God and his gut. He stated that in order to feel good about what he does each day, he has to follow his passions.

I left the presentation with a song stuck in my head and a new determination to reach for my dreams. By being creative and “faking it ‘til I make it,” I think I can do just about anything.

The Importance of Branding

The Importance of Branding

Many people frequently misuse the term “brand” by interchanging it with advertising, marketing, naming or a design. These improper applications have caused much confusion as to what branding is and how it works.   As such, “brand” has become a bit of a buzzword. But, what does it really mean and how does it work? Where did all start and how can it create value? To benefit from the effects of branding, a common understanding of “brand” must first be established.

Invented by P&G

Procter & Gamble invented the business strategy of “Brand Management.” Brand management focused attention on product specialization and differentiation instead of business function. By distinguishing the qualities of each brand from all other P&G brands, each would avoid competing with one another by targeting different consumer markets with a different set of benefits. This was especially important in product categories that the company manufactured several competing brands, like laundry detergent.
Over the years, P&G and the companies that embraced the brand management concept became extremely successful.  The most successful brands—those that lead their category and produced the highest ROI—used what they termed the Unique Selling Proposition or “USP.” 

The concept of “USP” has three guiding principles:

• The proposition must be clearly stated to the consumer: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
• The proposition itself must be unique. It must express a specific benefit that competitors do not, will not, or cannot offer.
• The proposition must be strong enough to pull new customers to the product.

Brand Positioning

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, the concept of “brand” began to take on new meaning, including the larger concept of image and values. Al Ries and Jack Trout captured this evolution in their Harvard Business Review article and later authored a book by the same title: POSITIONING: The battle for your mind. Their concept stated that it was not product superiority that mattered, but rather consumers’ perception of a given brand that paved the road to success. This concept was dubbed “brand positioning” and to this day it remains the standard for developing successful brands.

In practice: A brand is an experience living at the intersection of promise and expectation. Here’s how it works. A company expresses its brand as a promise, both overt and implied. That promise lives in consumers’ hearts and minds as an expectation. When brand promise and consumers’ expectations reflect one another, the brand holds tremendous value for both parties. 

Consumers use brand as an identification tool

Without brands, the marketplace would be overwhelming. Imagine a world without brands: You’re out of ketchup. You run to your local store where you are met by a wall of red bottles with simply the word “ketchup.” Without brands there would be no signals to illustrate the differences between the vast array of choices other than size and price. No name, no unique package, nothing! So which one do you choose, why and how?

You can quickly see how making a purchase becomes an ordeal and making a repurchase of a product you liked would be next to impossible. However, we live in a world where consumers have a system for differentiating products and services as well as tracking their experiences. Brands provide a method of classification, differentiation and identification that allow you, as the consumer, to simplify your ketchup buying decisions. 

Branding is managing customer expectations

Branding is not about getting people to choose your offering over the competitions. It is the act of managing consumers’ expectations so as to condition your target audience to see your offering as the only answer to a specific need.

By defining a realistic and manageable promise of what the brand owner will deliver and what consumers can expect of the brand, branding has become the backbone of modern business strategy. “Brand” drives consumer purchase decisions and affects nearly every functional area of a business. With product offerings converging into sameness, companies are viewing “brand” as the only avenue of differentiation.

Branding defines market position (brand strategy) and, through a series of signals, articulates that position as promise (brand positioning). When strategy and positioning work as one, brands obtain sustainable and favorable market positions. This has shifted the task of brand building and management to the primary business strategy.

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Excerpt from Eric Schulz’s new book “The Smart Marketer’s Toolbox” now available on Amazon.com.

Eric D. Schulz